Baron Rivendare's Horse
by child-dragon
Summary: The tauren shaman, Warraven, finds a nice new horse to ride. However, she's not quite certain how an undead horse works as opposed to kodos... so a friendly forsaken offers a bit of 'advice'.


The Underbelly tavern was quiet that day, as it was barely after noon and most people were either sleeping off a rough night or making a rough day out in the Northrend wilderness. A handful of people were gathered there. A Forsaken drinking by himself, two young Dalaran mages, the bar keeper drying a mug out, and a tauren recently returned from battle, barely stripped out of her armor.

There was also the horse. Or at least, what was left of it.

The beast stood where the tauren had left it, unmoving with the reins dangling loose. Its bones were covered by an ornate bard, a rich blue color with worked silver skulls and an armored piece on its narrow front. Eldritch flames licked around the hooves and its empty eye sockets glowed with a dull yellow fire. It stared at the tauren, neither blinking or moving.

Warraven stared at in turn, a slight look of dismay on her face. It had seemed like such a brilliant idea at the time. She had made it her habit to aid the Argent Dawn by culling the ranks of the Scourge inside Stratholme. Just fast excursions, laying waste to anything she could before the dark master of the place could gather up a sizable force and end her raids permanently. It was during her last adventure that she came across this horse, and needing a fast escape – for she had certainly overstayed her welcome and apparently the trick with the fire and some more flammable buildings was not appreciated – she stole it.

Now it kept staring at her. She turned to call for a beer.

"That yours?" the Forsaken finally said, jerking his head in the horse's direction.

"It is now, I suppose," she replied, gratefully accepting the booze and handing over the coin.

"Fine beast. Doesn't look like it was from Brill. They got good enough livestock there once its dug out of the ground." He chuckled darkly.

"No, I stole it from Stratholme."

"Huh. It let you ride it?"

"Yes." She shuddered. "Cept now I'm not so sure. I let it go, right? I'm not holding the reins, why doesn't it just go away to graze or something?"

"Because it's DEAD."

The Forsaken laughed and drained his mug, no easy task as his lower jaw was missing. He banged it down on the table and stood, walking over to inspect the horse. He checked the skull, the reins, the saddle. After a moment he turned towards the tauren.

"Fine steed," he said, "Very nice working on the armoring here. You didn't just steal a horse – you stole someone important's horse."

"Earthmother preserve me," she muttered.

"Well, you certainly can't waltz back in and return it now. It's yours for keeps. But if you're going to ride it, you have to break it in."

Warraven sipped at her mead. She knew vaguely that kodo had to be trained but that wasn't' really covered when she was taught to ride and care for one of the beasts. Someone else always tamed them. So how did that work with a dead horse, animated by the foul magic of the Scourge?

"Tell you what," the Forsaken continued, coming over and leaning on the table, "I'll help you out because you look like a nice tauren. I know how to break one of those beasties."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. It's easy in concept, not so easy to carry out. But you look pretty tough. All you have to do is ride the horse until exhaustion. Once it sees that you call all the shots and are far meaner than it is, it'll do whatever you want it to. Otherwise, it'll be prone to bolt or throw you off when you least expect it. Kind of dangerous on all these mountain paths with steep sides and a nasty fall."

Warraven eyed the horse suspiciously. It didn't look intelligent. It just looked... dead. And smelled sort of musty. Still.

"How do I know when it's tired?" she asked.

"When it starts faltering or slowing. You have to outlast it – remember, that is the most important thing. Prove you are its master! I suggest you just start running it around Dalaran, make a nice circle of it, and keep it at a gallop for as long as it takes."

Warraven set her mead aside, half finished. She backed up and gave the Forsaken a bow before collecting her gear.

"Thank you," she said.

The Forsaken just shrugged. He watched as she struggled to mount, teetering precariously on the narrow saddle, and then cautiously kicked it somewhere around the ribcage with her hooves. The horse started walking away towards the ramp leading up to Dalaran proper.

"That was cruel," the bar tender, who had been watching the entire scene, commented.

"But hysterical," the Forsaken replied, picking up the abandoned mug and starting in on it.

It was late afternoon. The guards around the Dalaran circuit had changed twice now and each pair had grown used to the site of a ragged tauren shaman passing by at full gallop time and time again. Passersby would stop and stare, bemused, and after a couple sightings move on. A pair of trolls were taking bets and keeping track of how many laps the undead horse made.

Warraven was just trying to hold on. She was exhausted. This was far worse than battle – at least there she had the smell of blood and the pounding in her ears to spur her on, make her forget her pain and fear and abandon herself to fight or die. No, here was worse. Her legs ached, her spine shot constant reminders of how unhappy it was with the abuse, and her shoulders were tight from concentration. The horse was unlike anything she had rode before. Kodo were at least large enough to accommodate her size. Even the talbuks were heavily built and the saddles weren't so narrow... or bony. Yet the horse ran on, over and over, until her mind fell into a stupor and she wondered just who was training whom.

At around sundown, the horse finally won. The tauren simply slid off the saddle to one side, landing with a heavy crunch on her shoulder and rolling onto her back, her eyes glazed and her mouth slightly open. The people who saw the fall winced. A tauren falling off a mount was not a graceful sight. Somewhere, the trolls started yelling for people to come collect or pay up on their bets. The horse just stopped running, going from a gallop to standing still in just a couple steps. It then just stood there, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. Warraven just groaned, rolled about feebly, and attempted to get. She failed and lay there panting, wondering if the muscles in her legs would ever forgive her or if she'd ever get feeling back in her... tail.

It was a gnome mage that finally ventured over. He stood there for a moment, grinning slightly, twirling his mustache as he stared down at the tauren. It wasn't often he got to look down on the overgrown cows.

"Nice horse," he said, and Warraven just blinked in complete incomprehension at his Common. He chuckled and looked around the small crowd.

"Hey, where's the Dalaran guards when you need them?" he asked, "We need a cleanup crew here. I don't like coming across passed-out tauren blocking the street."

They were already on their way. It took three of them just to move her and much more swearing to get the horse to kneel and then roll the tauren's mass onto the back. Warraven was crying feebly as the horse got up and followed their lead to the Filthy Animal for a room. The gnome chuckled.

She wouldn't be walking anywhere anytime soon... much less riding.


End file.
